This is my travel experience for Anand's wedding to Keelamudiman village in Tuticorin district. Anandraj is my college classmate. And this is the second boys marriage in our class that I am attending. I heard some of the other boys got married already and have a kid even.
The marriage was on a Sunday, so I started my journey on a Friday night. I came to know that Prabhu anna (my college senior) and some other juniors guys are also attending the marriage. Also, I heard they are going to Madurai and then to Tuticorin. So, me too booked my tickets to Madurai to join them. I reached Madurai Mattuthavani bus stand around 7AM in Saturday morning. Prabhu anna and two other junior guys were already there waiting for me to join. We started our journey to Kovilpatti from there. Actually, Keelamudiman is nearer to Kovilpatti than Tuticorin. So, Anand has booked the rooms near Kovilpatti bus stand itself.
Kovilpatti was hardly 2 hours journey from Madurai. So, we reached Kovilpatti bypass around 9:30AM. From there, we reached the hotel and met some faces which I was quite familiar like Babu, Karthi and Vasanth. But others are completely new to me. But, I really had a very good time with them all..
After some time of old and new stories, everyone of us got ready to go out.. I think it's Vasanth who proposed that plan to go "Thirparapu falls". There was a fun there. I will tell you little later.. We waited for the car for around an hour and finally we started our journey to the falls.. We traveled in the NH7. It was an awesome road, we were literally kind of flying. I was expecting that the falls will be somewhere nearby and will be less than an hour Journey. But it was more than an hour, since we started our Journey. There is no trace of falls and questions started to arise.
One answer shocked most of us.. The driver was saying it will take another 2-3 hours to reach the falls. Yes, the falls was in Nagercoil district in the borders of Kerala. Most of us were in the same misconception that the falls was nearby. On hearing the driver's comment, we just stopped by the side and started to discuss, whether we should proceed that long. And as expected, the decision was to proceed. So, we had a 3 hours of journey and finally reached the falls..
On the road side shop, we had some bajjis and gave some work for the ferocious stomach acids. Then we walked down the narrow passage to the falls. The falls had a little water unfortunately, but it was a pleasant view. Luckily, the crowd was low at that time, and it was mid afternoon. So I was really excited for a falls bath after a very long time.. If I remember correctly, I bathed in Kutralam falls during my second year of college(nearly 7 years before)..
Though the water was less, the bath was really excellent. The heavy blows on the back refreshed me like anything. I just thought of the days when people lived close to nature in villages compared to the fast and artificial life today in cities/towns.. At least, I had some experiences of village life in my childhood. I feel pity for the coming generations to miss all those.
After one hour of superb bath, we packed to leave. Already we were hunger, a superb bath aroused the hunger to a new extent. We attacked a bajji shop there and shattered the bajji's and bondas there and had some watermelon and got the hunger down a bit, but still feeling hunger. Then, we started back to Kovilpatti. On the way, we went to a hotel for dinner. I was expecting the spicy south side food there, but unfortunately we had Kerala style food with coconut oil in everything. But having no other go, we finished our dinner there itself and ended our day in the hotel room again. As expected, the night passed with "saraku" and lot of "blabberings".
The next day, we started around 7AM from Kovilpatti to Keelamudiman. It took around an hour through the dry lands to reach Anand's home where the marriage was scheduled. When we reached there, few things are really different. First, the innovatively designed banners with lots of fun and the Groom himself welcoming us in normal lungi with marriage in another half an hour.. We spent half and hour wondering in the streets there to pass the time..
The ceremony started around 10AM. The ceremonial stage was just a 10x10 stage before Anand's home with a small pandal for the others to sit. Apart from these different setup than a regular marriage, a lot of fun happened during the marriage. The kutties(don't mistake - i meant the small boys) were all given with the snow sprayers and few more decorative items. When the knot was tied, those kutties went really ferocious and filled the heads of the bride, groom and the iyer's head with complete snow.
After the marriage, a small reception was arranged in the nearby Govt school ground stage. I have never seen such a simple marriage in life so far and I really loved the proceedings. By the time, the bride and groom were getting ready for the reception, we spent our time playing cricket and rolled taps(athan pa - bambaram) after a long time. Then the bride and the groom visited the reception stage. \We hurried to wish the newly married couples, since the next plan was lunch obviously and that too with Chicken Briyani. After two rounds, we managed to get the seats for all of us in a row and had a heavy lunch. After the heavy lunch, we just visited the couple to inform them and leave. But, the next bus was only after an hour to Kovilpatti, so we waited in the bus stand with some vetti talks..
Finally, a bus was arranged and we reached Kovilpatti in an hour. Actually, I have booked my return ticket to Bangalore from Tuticorin itself. But most of the friends, who came to the marriage have booked their tickets from Madurai. So I also changed my plan to board the bus from Madurai and started to Madurai with them. We reached Madurai Mattuthavani bus stand around 7PM and had a simple dinner in a bus stand hotel. While others waited for their buses in the bus stand itself, I left to the travels office in Periyar bus stand. This ends my Tuticorin/Madurai trip for the marriage.
